Engagement Parties, Weddings and Showers, OH NO!

I really shouldn’t be writing this one, because I’m sorta’ shooting myself in the foot. These parties are a big part of how I earn a living (restaurant), but I promised my old friend Erin that I’d try to express some of her frustrations. I’m talking about the traditional cluster of engagement/bridal/baby shower parties that young that surround a wedding, and the wedding itself. 

These parties are very common; everyone has them because everyone else has them. You did it for me, so I’m obligated to do it for you.  

Engagement parties vary, it might be a dinner, it might be cocktails, it might even be a keg party, but the purpose is to celebrate a couple’s promise to marry. If you go to an engagement party to help them celebrate, you’re going to have to dig deep to come up with a suitable gift.  What is a suitable gift? How much? Most folks will pick up the phone, call friends and ask “How much are you giving?” People generally don’t want to give much more than anyone else, or look cheap by giving too small a gift. At the end of the night, everyone goes home and the newly engaged couple open their envelopes; like Bonnie and Clyde, they count up their unearned loot.

Gershwin said, “Nice work if you can get it.”

Assuming they stay engaged, there’s gotta’ eventually be a Bridal Shower! These are the women’s ritualistic gatherings, usually done in daylight hours at a restaurant, and it’s usually sprung as a surprise party for the unsuspecting but suspecting bride to be. A friend or a sister, even the fiancee might uncharacteristically suggest, “Let’s go out to lunch this coming Sunday at exactly 1 p.m., don’t be late and wear something nice.” 

When they pull up in the restaurant parking lot, the bride somehow doesn’t notice all of the familiar cars; she walks right by her Mom’s old Buick with the honor student bumper sticker, into the restaurant and gets the shock of her life! Forty of her female friends and family are standing there, grinning like maniacal Jack O’ Lanterns with lipstick and eyeliner, flashing away with their cameras and screaming “SURPRISE!”   

After hellos and hugs, they settle. They sit around eating, drinking White Zinfandel, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and an occasional Cosmopolitan (some eyebrows will raise when the strong stuff is ordered), and they chatter away. About half of these women hate each other but put up a good front for the sake politeness, and gathering intelligence for future gossip.  Toward the end, the guest of honor will open gifts from the large pile on one of the tables.  The bride was shocked to have been given a shower, but she she somehow made a list of all the loot she wanted beforehand, and “registered” it with a local department store. The department store she registered with was also pointed out in the shower invitations! 

People could walk into the selected department store, find out what was on her computerized Santa-style wish list, pick something out (the cheapest item still available), and the store will actually take it off the registry after it’s bought. The bride will still manage to look surprised when she opens the wrapping on the Cuisnart TOB-195 Exact Heat toaster oven she checked off on her list: “OH MY GOD!  This is the EXACT model I wanted!” 

What a shock; how ever did they know? There will also be some gag gifts, mostly naughty undies. The ladies will cackle when she opens those, the bride might even manage a phony blush, after all, her Mom is there! Then she goes home with a carload of serving trays, pots, pans, salad bowls, steak knives, stupid automatic bread makers that never work right, kitchen appliances, some of Victoria’s Secrets, and tells her disinterested fiancee all about it, while he’s trying to watch the ball game. He’ll check out the underwear later.  

Uh oh, the big payoff is here! The Wedding! For the ladies in the wedding party, this is a huge expense and dealing with the bride to be is more torturous than anything used on Terrorists at Gitmo. The bride might be a little stressed out trying to make it a perfect day, so she’s on the phone with the band, the catering hall, the photographer, the florist, the limo people, and she’s telling all of her friends each grueling detail of her conversations and negotiations.

Her friends try to sound sincere, but they’re rolling their eyes on the other end of the phone and mockingly putting their fingers into their mouths, pretending to induce a vomit. The Bride has picked out some bridesmaid gowns, they’re as ridiculous looking as they are expensive; they’re usually shiny, and no matter how beautiful the bridesmaids are, when they put these gowns on, they look like freaks. It seems like great care was given to find the ugliest dresses available. The girls each have to pay for their own gown (and shoes, everyone knows that the purple and pink shoes are key), but that’s just the beginning, because the telephone calls start again, “How much are you putting in the envelope?” 

The ceremony is the same as it ever was, so is the reception.

Wedding food is almost always cold, bland and bad (“Would you like the pre-cooked, portion controlled, vacuum-sealed salmon dijonaise, or the over cooked, cold, gray meat slab we’re calling filet mignon?”). The band isn’t great and they’re always way too loud; for some reason, listening to a balding fifty something year old substitute teacher with a pony tail playing guitar and screaming “Mustang Sally” into a microphone loses something after the 300th time. 

Another problem with receptions is, for some strange reason the Dewars doesn’t really taste like scotch. Then we sit through the introductions (“For the first time, as husband and wife!”), long, boring speeches, the cake feeding, the garter belt, throwing the flowers, The Electric Slide, Celebrate Good Times Come On!

At the end of the perfect day (at a wedding hall that has turned perfect days into Henry Ford style, assembly line mass production), there’s a line of people with Mustang Sally headaches waiting to hand envelopes stuffed with cash to the young couple that are just starting out.  The couple looks a little embarrassed as they say thanks, there are hand shakes, there are hugs and kisses; the bride and groom hear everyone saying what a nice time they had, what a great wedding it was (the cold, gray meat slab was really delicious this time), all the while they’re stuffing their envelopes into a beautifully decorated white velvet bag. If the new husband and wife aren’t too drunk when they get home, they’ll open the envelopes on the kitchen table, talk about their whirlwind day (all they really remember is posing for photos) that cost dad about $50,000 and count their unearned loot.  

Oh oh, she’s pregnant. Start it all over again, but this time it’s a baby shower. Some of the ladies are getting sick of it by now: “Ugggh, seems like I just shelled out for the engagement party, the bridal shower and the wedding.”  The women gather again, another daytime party at a different restaurant, less booze this time, and different gifts. Now it’s frames, cribs, car seats, blankets and battery-powered plastic things that rock babies automatically. 

If you think bridal showers aren’t fun, baby showers aren’t even more fun; the expectant Mom isn’t in the best mood by this time because she’s getting tired of being pregnant. There isn’t as much photography; this is more businesslike than the bridal shower; there is a “let’s get this over with” feeling to baby showers. The Mom-to-be puts up a brave front, smiling, opening gifts, excusing herself to use the bathroom quite a lot (the baby is acting like an 8 pound, 3 ounce prostate, leaning on the poor Mom’s bladder). She hears all of the pregnancy and delivery stories from the women that have already had the experience (“If she was my first, she woulda’ been my last”), she hears the prophesies, (“you’re carrying low and you looked bloated and tired, you’re going to have a girl”).   

At the end of the party, the Mother to be takes the car load of loot home, tries to show the Dad to be the great new plastic car seat they’ll put in the mini van they’ll be needing (eventually there will be a soccer ball sticker on the rear window), but he really doesn’t want to see it at all. He’s scared out of his wits about getting a new baby, he doesn’t want a mini van and he’s trying to watch the game. 

The Baby is born! That means more gifts.  Savings bonds and stuffed animals this time.    You’d better memorize the kid’s social security number, you’ll be buying it savings bonds for years.  

Christians have Christenings by the time the baby is a few months old. That means another party and more gifts. Savings bonds and religious things are standard gifts for Christenings. 

The baby turns a year old, and another party! Time to buy some kind of a stupid toy and get some more Savings Bonds. Savings Bonds always make great gifts because they earn about .000024% these days! That savings bond you paid fifty bucks for might actually be worth fifty-four dollars right in time for college; what a great head start to a $185,000 education.   

I don’t know what the average is, but let’s do some math. Assuming you’re not in the bridal party, this might be somewhere near average.  

• Engagement Party, $150

• Bridal Shower, $150

• Wedding, $300

• Baby Shower, $100

• Baby Birthday, $100

• Baby Christening, $100

• Baby Birthday, $100

If you’re a fortunate enough to be a bridesmaid, add in the cost of the dress and the purple and pink shoes you’ll never wear again.  

That’s a thousand dollars most guests are expected to shell out in what could be a very short amount of time, not to mention the beautiful weekend days lost; days you could have spent actually doing something you really wanted to do (fishing, a Yankee game, gardening, a Broadway Matinee, in a Mall or at a bar).

If you really don’t want to be a part of this cycle, if it’s that much of an effort, just cut it off. It shouldn’t be a problem or an insult to just say “No, I’m busy that day, but I appreciate the invitation.” Opt out if you want to, but remember when it’s your turn to cash in, opt out of that too. The cycle of carrying on with these rituals just because everyone else does it doesn’t need to continue. Just because people have been doing these things for years doesn’t mean you need to take part!  If you don’t like the trend, break it.